A seminal event in U.S. history occurred in Dallas, Texas over an eight-month period in the middle of the Great Depression. The 1936 Texas Centennial World's Fair would host and exhibit called the Hall of Negro Life. In this exhibit African-Americans for the first time in U.S. history told their story ?with their artists and writers and visionaries? at a World?s Fair. With work from artists like Aaron Douglass and performances from Cab Calloway, and Duke Ellington, African Americans for the first time in a public arena defined their own image. While onlookers marvelled at the art, music, fashion, literature and culture, the embers of the civil rights movement would glow and begin to take shape in these unlikely settings. African American leaders would use this moment to gather and plot to fight for civil rights. Unsung civil rights leaders like A. Maceo Smith, Eugene K. Jones, Jesse O. Thomas, would meet during the Hall's run to organize and strategize to help fight the "White primaries" in hopes of reshaping the voting rights for African Americans. The 1936 Texas Centennial State Fair became the unlikely backdrop for one of the most historical untold moments in American history. The Hall of Negro Life ignited the spark that became the fire that lit the civil rights movement?across America.